Las Vegas, NV - (Nov 17) - Liquid Prozac and
gaseous Quaaludes flowed like water, in Las Vegas, early
this morning, as attendees at Fall Comdex '97 continued
in the, so far, vain attempt to shake the brutal despair
which has apparently gripped every last one of them, at
all levels of the distribution and, you know,
food chain.

With the market for personal computers flatter than a
Wired reader's brainwaves, and with not even the
hint of a new product or concept anywhere in sight, (and
not even the hint of a new scare, or promise, or big
lie, anywhere in sight), marketers are rightly fearful
they may never move another fucking unit through the
fucking "channel" again, as long as they fucking live.
If you know what I mean.

"The market for personal computers is saturated," said a
major corporate CEO wearing an intentionally blurred-out
name tag, "The internet spike is over, and there's no
new software or accessory that anyone wants or doesn't
already have. Within 5 years, even Microsoft, will be
reduced to just doing support and bug-fixing on its full
line of legacy apps and OSs. No development. No new
products. Not even any upgrades. And Intel will be
melting down plants and selling off the raw pieces to
avowed nuclear proliferators and terrorists, for use in
dirty fusion warheads, at pennies on the dollar, with
the government's blessings."

"You can only stretch utter disingenuousness so far,"
said Bill Gates, in his keynote address, "Before it
becomes a chronic pain -- right here," and he pointed to
his side.

By far the most popular booth at the show was the Gingko
Biloba (or whatever) booth, where veterans and newbies
alike scarfed down endless free samples of the
"mind-improvement" herb, in the hopes of maybe having,
you know, A FUCKING IDEA!!

Market Firmly UP

The stock market rose sharply today, on news that the
Spice Girls, the most popular group in entertainment
history, are breaking up.

Louis Rukeyser, a generic TV business talking flak,
claimed that, "Since the Spice Girls are the only form
of entertainment that Americans care about at all,
anymore, their breakup will most likely force hapless
mass-consumers to either return to their previous only
form of entertainment -- which was basically trashing
the personal shit out of each other -- or else, they'll
have the opportunity to evolve to a new level of
entertainment appreciation, where the moment by moment
fluctuations of the Stock Market alone, are much more
popular than Jesus and the Beatles put together."